This isn't for me, this is for those who want to form a faction, but don't know where to start, or if they do, they get parts wrong. There is a lot of things to consider when making a faction. You have to start with alignment, then build up and RP history, perhaps including events that happened in the past to trigger your factions formation. Then you consider your faction's current situation and build around this, using information garnered from written sources within Freelancer or otherwise.
You choose your accessible ship lines and weapon restrictions, and consider how your members will be organized, what ranks to make and how they can ascend the ranking order. You find them a place to have fun and you have to organize paperwork with other factions to assign friendly or allied status'.
That is the tip of the iceburg. And I feel this would be helpful if each potential faction leader understood what they got wrong, down to a very fine detail, so they know in which way they could fix it for a resubmission. Usually, it takes a small team of people to compile this information in good time, and I think having all the things to do in specific circumstances in a single place could help them make the right choices, provided they spend the time looking and reading these.
To Xing:
Some small things bring certain factions down. For example, I was thinking of joining the [PRF] with Mandy (as the sso| died), but I gather they weren't accepted for some reason. I must admit, curiosity makes me want to know why they were rejected in a little more detail than just a plain "no", but I am sure I'm not the only one in this position.
Those reasons I list suggest prospective bonus' potentially garnered from this mode of operation, which leaves my, one could say selfish, desire for information out of the equation.
Now, that said, this leaves me open to verbal attack and some one reading my words as they are not meant to be read. I will leave this statement to see if that happens...
The thing to consider is we see the faction proposals on the forums, but the Admins (and Hoodlum and AC could correct me here if I'm wrong) usually use backchannels (Read: PM) to give the thumbs up or down. This means that while the community may get excited about a clan (Lane Security has potential if they get things right, for example), we're left high-and-dry as to the outcome unless the faction creator explains.
THIS tells the basics of starting a faction, what you need to prepare, etc. This combined with a careful perusal of the Faction Status page will inform the would-be faction leader of what goes into a well-crafted post (see Keepers, a personal fav, for example).
I know the admins are busy (common refrain nowadays), but perhaps a little feedback from them would be helpful for not only the budding leaders, but for the current ones as well, keeping an eye on what the admins are looking for for "Good RP".
My wonder is would some of the current factions around today have gotten admin approval? Probably not. I AM NOT PICKING ON ANYONE here, but examples are Phantoms, Hellfire Legion, NovaPG. What i've seen is if you're not dead-on with the NPC rollplay, you're not going to get accepted. Yes, these are some of the longest-lasting, well-played factions here, but...food for thought. Some very good factions can come out of less-than-exact models of NPC factions.
PRF is an example of something that probably could have worked, but didn't. why? no one except for the rejecting admin knows for sure, as shown in the post asking the community for input. Then there are other factions that get the OK that the community goes ?!?!?.
' Wrote:Now, that said, this leaves me open to verbal attack and some one reading my words as they are not meant to be read. I will leave this statement to see if that happens...
Actually, I agree with you for the most part. And the reason a factions dies (as sso did) is becuase they are not properly run or organized. See, it is impossible for one person to continuously run a faction, it requires enormous amounts of time, and more importantly, money. So at some point, the leader goes "afk" leaving the faction in someone elses hands, or just leaves all together w/o a whisper.
A good solution to this is to set up your faction as a democracy from the get go. Design a system of government allowing members to vote on their leader or leading bodies. This prevents "afk" as any leader who does disappear, can be easily replaced and selected from within the clan. This is also the solution to bad leadership, another cause of death for most clans.
Look at the UOG, has anyone noticed the explosion of membership lately? I believe if I left UOG today I could come back in 6 months and it would still be running like a fine oiled machine. We have piece by piece re-organized the entire clan by way of it's members.
How does this tie into faction creation? Easy, when creating your faction you should do this from the get go. Not many people would not want to hand their hard earned status onto someone else, but you can always create a special permanent position for yourself, much like the Queen of England. If you do this your faction will thrive as its members will have be a part of it, not just a member. I believe this is one key to faction creation that many don't think of, set up your entire government using current models or your own ideas before you even entertain the idea of creation. After which set a minimum member base so that the faction remains in your hands alone until a minimum number of members is reached. That way you will have full control and your fledgling faction does not dissipate into chaos.
Doing things like this will show the Admins you want to create a meaningful and useful faction. You will have a purpose, and fill a void in the discovery market. There are several approaches, all of which are your choice, but I highly suggest that you have all your apples in the barrel before even considering the idea.
Sorry Mac, I have no idea where the story of the PRF being rejected started, but unfortunately its not true.
If this is about that, then you are barking up the wrong tree ... The word 'no' was never used, or certainly
not by me in any communication.
I was going to make a list of do's and don't's, but I think you have said enough for people to get the right
idea, and if you want to help anyone please do, but as admins we have little enough time now to have to
be re-writing players faction ideas.
Personally, my time to play is getting less and less, as the server gets busier and busier, and trying to keep
a reasonable handle on who or what gets recognition now, eats into a considerable part of it, as I am the
middle man. I could actually do without it now.
The creation rules changed to stop the rising flood of completely ludicrous and totally unnecessary 'clans'
or 'YANFs' as they were christened at the time, taking over. If you want the responsibility of shooting down
creation ideas, as a collective, I will put the idea back on the admin forum. It is you guys who ultimately
have to deal with them in game.
But if it just descends into the likes of the last shambles, it will quickly revert back again, and will probably
get stricter.
Hoodlum
Some say he is a proud member of: "The most paranoid group of people in the Community."
As the leader of the Golden Chrysanthemums, which was the latest faction to get official status, I would like to suggest looking at the GC faction status page in the relevant topic for general ideas in what to submit for a faction. All the information on the faction status page is, bar a couple of minor alterations, entirely the faction application that I submitted to the admins to make GC official. I too had no real idea what was required initially, but I read through the faction status topics and wrote one up as best as I could and then submitted it.
I'm quite willing to help out anyone who wants to submit a faction application and feels they could use a hand with fixing it up to get (hopefully) approved, so by all means feel free to ask.
A few things I've loved to see in faction creation rules would be, among others;
-No silly faction names
-No factions that has no link whatsoever with freelancer storyline
-No ridiculously complexe tags just to be fancy, [ ] is more than enough, so does ( ), and even = = if you want to be a bit more original.
-No double faction for one npc faction (for exemple, there is one lpi npc faction, then you wont have 2 player lpi faction)
because, to refuse a faction, you should have established rules to do so, right? otherwise people will acuse you of poping up excuses.
' Wrote:Sorry Mac, I have no idea where the story of the PRF being rejected started, but unfortunately its not true.
If this is about that, then you are barking up the wrong tree ... The word 'no' was never used, or certainly
not by me in any communication.
I was going to make a list of do's and don't's, but I think you have said enough for people to get the right
idea, and if you want to help anyone please do, but as admins we have little enough time now to have to
be re-writing players faction ideas.
Personally, my time to play is getting less and less, as the server gets busier and busier, and trying to keep
a reasonable handle on who or what gets recognition now, eats into a considerable part of it, as I am the
middle man. I could actually do without it now.
The creation rules changed to stop the rising flood of completely ludicrous and totally unnecessary 'clans'
or 'YANFs' as they were christened at the time, taking over. If you want the responsibility of shooting down
creation ideas, as a collective, I will put the idea back on the admin forum. It is you guys who ultimately
have to deal with them in game.
But if it just descends into the likes of the last shambles, it will quickly revert back again, and will probably
get stricter.
Hoodlum
You also never said "yes" anyplace where we could see. You just told them that it was in PMs.
I was under the impression that the PRF was rejected, as they do not have a faction status post at the time of writing, and they seem to have, for the most part, disappeared. Sorry for the confusion, but as Dopamino said, all we were told is that it was in PMs...
I would be happy to volunteer to take some time to view faction creation ideas and proposals, if it would free up some admin time; I am sure there are plenty of others who would also volunteer to give time to the admins so they can do more important admining duties.
I don't know about the whole community posting, because it may degenerate, as you say. But at the same time, I think the community should know more...
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